Agricola mine illustration

Lot 1533 limit € 100

Woodcut, colored later, Im Tretrad, depiction of 2 workers in the pedal wheel, plus a worker with a jug and a craftsman hitting a clip in a wave, illustrated book page from a Latin edition of the work De re metallica by Georgius Agricola, image cropped on the reverse also showing a system for water elevation, mounted behind a passe-partout, glass frame, signs of age (among other things slightly stained, side trimmed), sheet approx. 20.5 x 18.5 cm, with frame approx. 30 x 30 cm, probably 16th/17th century. From the standard work on mining and metallurgy by the Chemnitz researcher and natural scientist G. Agricola, which first appeared in Basel in 1556, further editions in Latin were printed in Basel in 1561, 1621 and 1657. The original wooden sticks were used almost without exception, only a few had to be re-carved or repaired over time. From Chemnitz, Agricola supervised the publication of his opus magnus and worked closely with the artists who made the drawings and the wooden blocks. In the often technically complicated representations, the woodcut artists sometimes made tiny mistakes - the pedal wheel in this illustration is turning in the wrong direction. In view of the abundance of illustrations - the 12 books on Re Metallica were illustrated with almost 300 woodcuts - these little artistic mishaps are particularly appealing. The depiction of the pedal wheel comes from the sixth book Of tools, implements and machines. The letters in the illustration denote the following objects: A. The tread wheel, B. The shaft, C. The double chain, D. A link of the double chain, E. The jug, F. A single bracket, G. A triple-curved bracket .